Anti-Expertism and Václav Havel
posted by Andrew Simone
Many folks have asked me just what I mean by “anti-expertism,” I think Jean Bethke Elshtain discussion on Havel’s post-totalitarianism and its application to the free Western world sums it up well:
So, what does it mean to be “living in the truth?” I think there, Havel would say, “Well, it means doing what I did in my own context, which is piercing through, penetrating that dense tissue of mystifications that you will find in every society.” It was clear what those were in pre-1989 Czechoslovakia. It’s harder here, but there certainly are such things. For example, if there isn’t the possibility for authentic speech and action, then it means that certain elites simply get on automatic pilot and do what they want. That’s why some of the debates surrounding the embryonic stem cell debates have been disheartening to me, because you have some who will say, “Oh, those people who are making arguments against it are not letting science do what science does. We have to ‘believe in science.’” And I think, “What the heck does that mean? Everything science does we just roll over for?”
So, it would be not letting people say, “Well, it’s science, so the ordinary person has no say over it since they’re not the expert.” It means we need to question some of the assumptions that go into an enterprise like science, especially insofar as it’s going to attach onto such fundamental questions as the nature of human life itself. Because you can get mystification surrounding not just things like financial markets, for God’s sake, but phenomena like science as well, where, you know, those of us who are not scientists feel, “Gosh, I’m not an expert.” We’re made to feel like that. So there’s a hesitancy to try to cut through it. And yet, the grounding presupposition of a democratic society is that we have to raise questions.
Comments
Yeah, I’ve never understood the idea that Bush, in being against stem-cell research, was somehow ‘anti-science.’ (note-I’m not a Bush fan, to say the least, and I believe he was anti-science w/regards to global warming), and that it was ideologically driven, not scientific. As if ‘one ought to conduct stem-cell research’ is a scientific and non-ideological proposition.
Science has nothing to say about morality. Sure, it can have a study that shows that arranging a school district in such-and-such a way would make more people happy, but it can’t establish that ‘one ought to make people happy’. Or, it can show that we use emotion in our moral decision-making, which is neither here nor there with regards to whether we should.
I asked my pro-stem-cell rsearch students whether people who are against doing scientific experiments on prisoners or people in comas are ‘anti-science’, or folk against animal research are ‘anti-science’. Certainly we would get better results that could cure more diseaeses if we experimented on humans, even against their will.
Anyways, none of this is to say whether or not stem-cell research should be done, it’s just that, whether it should be done or not is not a scientific question, even though scientists will be doing the work.
Ok,